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			<h1>What sets us apart</h1>
			<p>Day 01197: <time>Saturday, 2018 June 16</time></p>
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<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2018/06/16.jpg" alt="Under the bridge" class="framed-centred-image" width="649" height="480"/>
<section id="tools">
	<h2>Tools</h2>
	<p>
		I&apos;ve been thinking about humans in comparison to other apes a lot lately.
		I&apos;m not sure exactly why.
		Recently, I actually did some research on Gorillas and was sorely disappointed.
		They&apos;re not quite as similar to us in intelligence level as I&apos;d thought.
		I mean, I thought we had talking gorillas in captivity.
		They use sign language to communicate, right?
		They must have similar language-processing skills as us.
		However, while the exact level of language proficiency they have is disputed, it&apos;s widely agreed by experts that they don&apos;t use syntax or grammar.
		These apes string together nouns, adjectives, and I think verbs and the interpretation is left up to the researcher the gorilla is trying to talk to.
		The gorillas don&apos;t actually have language-processing capabilities the same way we humans do.
		Additionally, &quot;speaking&quot; non-human apes do not seem to possess the ability to ask questions.
		All the words are there, but the gorillas only answer questions, never pose them.
	</p>
	<p>
		Anyway, I was thinking about what strange animals we are again, and I realised that our entire lives are dominated by tools.
		While other animals use tools occasionally if at all, not a day goes by that we don&apos;t use several tools without even thinking about it.
		Not all of these tools are overly complex in purpose or design.
		I mean, take that pronged object you probably have thirty of in your kitchen.
		It&apos;s a fork.
		It stabs things.
		It has no moving parts whatsoever.
		The premise of it is that there exists an object that you don&apos;t want to make direct contact with, but you want to move it and don&apos;t mind if it gets damaged.
		Usually you&apos;d use it for food, so the damage doesn&apos;t matter as you&apos;re going to chew up the object in a few seconds anyway.
	</p>
	<p>
		Tools become a part of us as we use them; an extension of our being.
		One thing humans are particularly good at is taking a tool and manipulating it as if it was actually a part of their body.
		We temporarily forget that the tool is technically a separate object we&apos;re holding, or we forget the tool is even present at all.
		Have you ever been looking for your keys (another tool, by the way) and later found them right in your hand?
		I guess that applies to non-tool objects as well, but to our minds, there seems to be little difference.
		We use non-tools as tools, and we use tools as other tools.
		Whatever we hold becomes a part of us, if only until we put it down again.
	</p>
	<p>
		Anyway, while biological evolution continues somewhat in humans even today, the main evolution of our species isn&apos;t going on in our <abbr title="deoxyribonucleic acid">DNA</abbr>, but in our tools.
		We build new tools, based on old tools but with subtle adjustments; adaptions; improvements.
		This is the damage done by patents: they prevent the natural evolution of our tools, causing them (and by extension, us) to stagnate.
		Public knowledge is the only true way forward.
	</p>
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